Holier Than Thou: The Guardian View on The Panama Papers

by Frank

We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” Leona Hemsley, American business woman and socialite 2007

The revelations contained in the Panama Papers are nothing new, except perhaps the scale of the problem. Even back in 2012 we had the tax scandal of the Barclay Bros, British media tycoons and proprietors of the Telegraph Media group, who lived the high life avoiding tax payments in the UK tax havens in the Channel Islands and also spending their time in Monaco, another tax haven.

Then in 2014 there was the case of right-wing US billionaires the Koch Bros. A leak of confidential documents expands the list of big companies seeking secret tax deals in Luxembourg, exposing tax-saving manoeuvres by American entertainment icon The Walt Disney Co., politically controversial Koch Industries Inc. and 33 other companies.

Disney and Koch Industries, a U.S.-based energy and chemical conglomerate, both created…